Some polishing fixtures exist in the prior art for polishing a fixture mounted device. Also, such fixtures may be used to side polish an optical fiber device where the fixture and device are placed on a polishing surface in a polishing slurry. In this regard, one must understand that it is critical to the operation of a polishing fixture that the fixture maintain the mounted device in a stable and accurate perpendicular relationship relative to the polishing surface. In this way, the mounted device outer-facing surface is polished flat and not rounded at its edges or across its face. Such rounding affects the performance of the device and means the difference between a functioning device versus a defective device. Also, excessive rounding, uneven polishing, or abrupt handling of the mounted device can result in a broken device because of its fragile nature, as well known in the art.
All the known fixtures have several disadvantages. For example, these fixtures may utilize support configuration that do not enable polishing of a fiber device and then ready inspecting, measuring and/or testing of the device as mounted in the fixture without the aid of another support instrument. Additionally, known fixtures may utilize a spring assembly to position the device adjacent the polishing surface. Such an assembly has been found to fatigue over time and thus does not provide a constant positioning force which can result in defective polishing and/or defective devices. Further, prior polishing fixtures require a rather complicated axial support shaft assembly. Moreover, such an assembly often does not adequately support the shaft and over time it becomes fatigued and is unable to maintain the shaft in a perpendicular relationship relative to the polishing surface.
Accordingly, a need exist to provide a polishing fixture that overcomes the disadvantages in the existing prior art fixtures. The present invention comprising a polishing fixture and method for polishing a device, preferably a side polished fiber optic device, overcomes these disadvantages and offers several other features for polishing fiber optic devices and other devices for use in a polishing fixture. As will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the features of the present invention differs from those previously proposed.